Where were you when Osama Bin Laden died of boredom while watching Vin Diesel’s Fast Five at a celebration party for William and Kate’s royal wedding?

In recent days we’ve experienced three historical events most people will remember their whole lives:

1. The killing of Osama Bin Laden
2. The royal wedding of William and Kate
3. The debut of the fifth Fast and The Furious film as the top movie over the weekend with $83.6 million–maybe not historically significant today, but historians will later mark the movie’s debut as the beginning of America’s transition to dictatorship as leaders realize citizens can’t be trusted with democracy when they make such terrible, terrible choices.

These are called “Where were you when…?” moments. We all tell stories about where we were and what we were doing when we heard big news, and the sights and sounds of our settings become indelibly connected with the event.

“I’ll never forget I was at work when my wife called and said turn on the news…”
“I was on a blind date at a restaurant when people started whispering…”
“I was sorting through a dumpster and had just found a perfectly good sandwich when I saw the newspaper clipping…”

Because you’ll be telling this story for decades, it’s to your advantage to be doing something impressive at that pivotal moment, giving you the opportunity to toot your own horn the next three hundred times you tell the story.

“Where were you when William and Kate got married?”
“I was watching on the TV at the gym while setting a new personal best in the bench press of 293 pounds.”

Of course you can’t plan for most big news events, so here are some tips for impressing that you can pull out quickly in an emergency:

1. Type and save a text message promoting a charity fundraiser you want to organize. As soon as you get the news, reference it at the very end of your text and click send all:

Everyone will remember the moment they got the big news, and the memory will always be associated with how charitable you are.

2. Read all of War and Peace except the last page. Carry it with you at all times and when someone says, “Did you hear Bill Clinton was impeached?” you can pull War and Peace from your bag and read the last page. Some day your grand kids will ask about impeachment, and you can say, “I was on the last page of War and Peace when I got the news.” Reading War and Peace is very impressive, and I want people to know, and I’m always looking for opportunities to announce I’ve read it, just like I did right now.

3. Solve a mystery, but don’t tell anyone who did it until the moment you get the news.

“Did you hear the big news? I just heard on the radio that–”
“The butler did it! JFK was killed by his butler, and I can prove it!”

4. Kiss the person next to you. “I was making out with my doctor when the nurse gave us the news.”

5. Grab someone and start doing the Heimlich maneuver, even if he isn’t choking. All the witnesses will talk about your heroics for the rest of their lives every time the big news is mentioned. The person who wasn’t really choking may try and dispute he needed your help, but you can tell everyone his brain didn’t get enough oxygen while he was choking, and this affected his short-term memory and gratitude.

6. Finish a Rubik’s Cube completely except for the last turn, and carry it in your pocket at all times. If someone says they have big news, tell them to wait while you pull the Rubik’s Cube from your pocket and make the last turn.

7. Keep a complicated cheese souffle in the freezer, when you hear someone say breaking news, hurry and throw it in the oven. “I was making a delightful cheese souffle when I got the news.”

8. If you’ve got a time machine just about finished, you might wait to turn that last screw until somebody has big news. “I was finishing the world’s first time machine when I got the big news.”

9. Also, if you can’t think of anything impressive, you might use the big news opportunity to reveal bad news and hope your failure might get buried by the bigger news.

“Honey, did you hear about Bin Laden?”
“I lost all our money gambling on the Internet.”
“What?”
“But that doesn’t seem important now. This whole Bin Laden business really puts my gambling addiction in perspective.”

Every time your ex-wife tells the story of where she was when she got the news her husband had lost her in a card game, she’ll say, “I had just learned about Bin Laden’s death when I got the big news.”

10. Do you have a cure for cancer? You might think you’ll wait to announce it until you can associate it with big news, but actually curing cancer would be pretty big news on its own and maybe you should just announce it today. Let me know in advance so I can have my Rubik’s Cube ready.

I’m going to occasionally try to finish a post with a sentence that confuses the search engines and sends people to my site who had no intention of being here. Here is today’s contribution:

Osama Bin Laden dies of boredom while watching Vin Diesel’s Fast Five at celebration party for William and Kate’s royal wedding.

Note: I have had problems posting comments on your sites. Almost all of my comments aren’t showing up on other blogs, and I assume they are going to your spam folders. Please check your spam. I also occasionally have long-time readers’ comments go to my spam or require a new approval. I have alerted WordPress and akismet to the problem, but they don’t seem to believe me.

I’ve long felt that Americans are too stupid to make good decisions for themselves, but I guess that’s the price of democracy… as for where I was? I was half passed out after my third beer with the dog asleep on my arm with Batman on in the background. Pretty goddamn epic, right?

This is pretty smart, to come up with something exciting, heroic to be doing. I had just finished having dinner and was about to take out the trash. But for the next big event, I’m going to be ready–thanks to these great ideas.

I’m hoping my advice will become part of your memory during the next big event, and I’ll forever be attached to history.
I left a comment on your blog, but it didn’t show up. Please check the spam folder.

Hey, thank you for the heads up! I found your comment in my spam. I was able to save it from spam hell and put it in its rightful place–once again, thanks to you and your cunning intelligence for figuring out the problem.

I was watching The Real Housewives of Orange County. I was so influenced by the show that I was drinking wine and acting like a mean girl in junior high. I was just about to Google “plastic surgery procedures” when the breaking news alert for Osama’s death blinked across my computer screen. I’m going to put a Rubix Cube in the drawer of my family room end table in hopes that during the next major event that I won’t shame myself again.

I was asleep. My husband woke me up saying, “they killed Osama.” I thought he was telling me another bad joke (yes, he wakes me up to tell me bad jokes). When I found out it was the truth, I was only slightly less pissed that he woke me up. I do not like being woken up.

If any senator wants to admit to having a gay affair, now would be the time. That news will be buried somewhere on page 3.

I was inadvertently swallowing paint while doing up my kitchen. Don’t panic, I’ve been to the doctor, and I’m fine. The added bonus is my intestines now match my kitchen, which should make the transition easier should I ever start consuming live prey.

I was at the bar outdrinking all the boys and found out when I glanced at #Twitter, but it didn’t really register because there was a whiskey and cherry concoction in my glass and boys to make feel bad about their wussy livers. But then I heroically closed my tab, went home, hung a painting, passed out, woke up at 5 am and made breakfast while listening to NPR.

When I heard the news, I had just been cleaning out my spam basket. For some reason there were numerous comments from you there, none of which had been addressed to me. Is this evidence of a time-space-spam rift? Will I have to re-name my blog Area 52?

I’m not sure, but I’m intrigued by the possibilities. I just left you a comment that never appeared. Check your spam folder and see if it’s one of the comments I supposedly left you before you even posted, proving the time-space-spam rift.

I was atop the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro about to thrust down my “Hamsters for Peace” flag when my iPhone’s “mass murdering terrorists captured and pro badminton results” Google alert went off. After scrolling through the big news (Maylasia over China 15-13 final set – Golden Shuttlecock Open)… I gathered my trusty Andy Dufresne model rock hammer and headed back. Oh yeah… I did also high five the “Can you hear my now?” guy on the way down.

I appreciate you. The world would be lost without your advice, and thanks to you my bedroom now features a robot that can Not Make Bed better than I can 🙂
Also, #3 historical event worried my soul. I still feel like the fans that packed theatres for the opening of Gigli should be rounded up and sent to an island.

I’m more saddened that Fast Five is making headlines. Seriously? A 5th fast and the furious? How are they any different from 1-4?

I heard the news about Osama while I was blogging last night. And then I shut down twitter and wordpress, 5 seconds of the comments rolling in was enough for me. I understand people’s anger but I can’t feel good about condemning someone to hell on TWITTER?! I did think the President’s address was an educated, and comforting report. Hearing your post on the news sure would’ve given it all a great spin. lol.

I’m just sad this Osama news will prevent people from talking about how bad Fast Five was around the water cooler this morning.
I recently left a comment on your blog but it didn’t show up. Please check your spam folder.

Where was I?
I was on my sofa with drink in hand (yes…it may have been 11am here in the UK) waiting to chug at the slightest glint of emotion from the Queen during the Royal Wedding.
I was on my sofa trawling Facebook when I found out about Osama.
I was on my sofa, about 5 minutes ago when I read your blog and thought…what to the hell now? Fast & Furious 5? When will they learn…

I’m not making this up: last night I heard that President Obama was expected to address the nation about some undisclosed issue related to national security, so I turned on my TV — and saw Obama announcing that he’d just agreed to release his birth video (it was a clip from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner). For a moment, I was delighted the White House and the news agencies had all gone in on this joke together.

I wonder if he got the idea to release his birth video after I made this joke a couple days ago on Twitter:
“This birth certificate means nothing! I won’t be satisfied until Obama can prove his BIRTH wasn’t faked!”
I would have let him have that joke for the Correspondents’ Dinner.

I was channel surfing for news about the royal wedding when it came on. I would have been watching Fast Five, but it hasn’t come out on video yet, and I’m not spending good money to go to the theater. I would spend bad money, but I don’t have any. If anyone has some bad money they want to send me, I’ll happily go see the movie. As for the royal wedding, I was joking. You don’t actually have to channel surf for news about it. It’s already on every channel.

I think we all know what you were doing Paul. Surely you were sitting in a corner pondering the next “pratical joke that went too far” for Todd. Or did you get Bin Laden? Did Todd? Wow, just think, if Todd shot Bin Laden he is totally going to win. We can’t have that.

Me? I was sound asleep. Serves me right for going to bed early just once. Promise it will not happen again. I read about it this morning on my BlackBerry and I thought it was a joke. Promilgated by you. Stop laughing.

I’m having LOADS of problems commenting on WP blogs. It’s something they’re aware of cos my on-line buddy Emmy got a hold of them and chatted about that problem amongst some others…

I loved your title and thoughts today. Good times.

My answers to 1, 2 & 3? Didn’t watch/ see.

I haven’t seen any FF films (1 through 5, apparently). I didn’t watch RW coverage, although I turned on Chris Matthews Friday and he showed “the kiss,” then crowds waving Union Jacks and said something nice about national pride and the Osama thing “came to me” via my father shouting it.

I’m not sure if town-crier will ever make a comeback as a career, but your father should just go for it. I’d like to turn off all the news and only be alerted if something really important happens. Maybe a town-crier is just what I need.

I’ve had problems with comments multiple times in the past, but they only lasted 1-2 days at a time. This time it’s been a week and WP hasn’t given me any encouragement that they know what the problem is.

Hey! Great article! Speaking of War & Peace, I started reading Anna Karenina once…
And about those missing comments, I believe that’s Will & Kate’s revenge for your previous article on their wedding. They must be “in” with wordpress somehow.

I hear Anna Karenina is good. I also hear Anna Karenina is long. I would consider reading it, but impressing people by mentioning I’ve read War and Peace doesn’t come up as often as I would have liked, and I don’t think adding Anna Karenina to my impressive books list is worth it.

My mom used to cook spam for dinner. I think you and I will agree, I’ve had enough spam.

I would like you to know, because it seems important, that getting the email notification for this blog post is what broke the news. I sort of thought it was a joke, but I knew two out of three of the events mentioned in your title really occurred.

So congratulations on that. Tuck a feather in your hat, Yankee Doodle, because that makes little to no sense.

I was at work with another colleague at the time of the announcement of Bin Laden’s death. Neither of us would have known about it until we went home and watched the evening news… except both of our mobile phones alerted us to text messages at exactly the same time. Our ex husbands (they don’t know each other) had sent us identical messages “Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance”

Hey, I found one of your comments in my spam a couple of days ago. But yesterday’s came through ok. Maybe my ex husband pushed some buttons…..

I was watching a baseball game and the cameras showed everyone in the crowd getting text messages at the same time. Our “where were you…?” moments are going to become more and more similar as we all learn big news through mobile devices within the first fifteen minutes.

I think everyone has to find me in the spam folder once and approve me again. I’ve had multiple long-time readers go to spam and once I approve them again there doesn’t seem to be a problem.

I have no good stories to tell about where I was for any of these events… However, in the same vein, when the towers fell on 9/11, I was in the hospital, in preterm labor with my 2nd child. The doctor was literally checking my cervix as the towers began to fall. He forgot what he was doing, left his hand ‘there,’ and proceeded to watch the towers come down for about 3 minutes.

Where Was I:
1 Kennedy: a nice comfy womb
2. Moon Landing: Family living room as little kid
3. 9/11: Living Room in mt home in Ca. Had just in NYC for the preceding 10 years
4. Death of Osama: eating Pho at a Vietnamese restaurant with friends in Reno

1. Yes, one of your comments showed up in my spam… but I left it there so I could enjoy it all to myself you dirty devil… 😉

2. When I found out about Bin Laden I was at my gig singing “Lookin’ For Love (In All The Wrong Places)” when the breaking news flashed across the tv at the bar. That’s a true statement and nothing to be proud of.

3. When I got off the stage I said… “Bin Laden couldn’t take anymore coverage of William & Kate so he killed himself”. I said this over and over again to anyone who would make eye contact with me and nobody laughed but my boyfriend – god bless him.

Does it still count if you remove a new Rubik’s Cube from the package, turn it once, and then turn it back to its completed form?

I left a comment on your site, but it didn’t appear. Please check your spam.
By the way, you appeared in my spam a couple weeks ago, and I had to approve you again. I’ve asked WP why this is happening, but they are insisting it isn’t happening.

I worried somebody would actually know something about freezing cheese souffles. Readers will never trust me again, Wendy. I make a terrific Parmesan cheese souffle, but I’ve never tried to freeze it first.

How about, “Woke up half naked on some random guy’s sofa and the big news was on TV. You know what the big news was at the moment? That I was actually at the guy’s parents house, only covered by an afghan.” (LOL, there was no pun intended. Just reread that.) True story, but only about Hussein instead.

Truly you have a perspective that’s one of a kind. Another option would be to stab yourself but not to really hurt yourself. Then later you could say how you remember the news because that was the same time you got stabbed. They won’t remember who stabbed you.

This made me think about what I was doing when these things were announced.

I was about to post when I saw the Freshly Pressed announcing Osama’s death.
I was arguing with my ex (who was English) about the importance of there wedding and how I didn’t care.
I was critizing the movie trailer in theatres.

Do you think if I told these stories in an accent, they would sound more epic?

I was on Twitter, hoping that I could get out my marital duty by staying downstairs long enough for my DH to fall asleep. Yes, that’s the kind of evil wife I am and no, I’m not proud. Well, I kind of am.